


Following The Neon Signs

by lukeinallhisglory



Category: Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Boys In Love, Getting Back Together, M/M, Mild Smut, This basically murders Find Me and stomps on its grave, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:47:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24801820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lukeinallhisglory/pseuds/lukeinallhisglory
Summary: A year later Oliver and Elio meet back up in New York, and obviously no one in the world thinks this will end platonically.
Relationships: Oliver/Elio Perlman
Comments: 28
Kudos: 112





	Following The Neon Signs

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first one in the CMBYN universe, so I hope you like it. All the credit in the world goes to André Aciman. 
> 
> Title from "Midnight City" by M83.
> 
> [Also, it's only been a day since I posted this, but I'm a pathological perfectionist so I have already gone back and edited/revised this a bit]

“You cut your hair,” He said simply, but what that really meant was there was a visible reminder of change. That I was not the version of myself that was his. 

But in truth, I was. With someone else, a year and haircut may have been enough distance, but not with Oliver. Looking at him, standing this close to him, my thoughts were already tripping over themselves, all tangled up in messy sentiment and attachment. He looked so pensive, a million thoughts creasing his brow. “More manageable this way,” I said simply, hoping that he could read my expression as well now as he always had been able to. That he would know that when I sound nonchalant, what I really mean is I want you to devour me. 

“I like it,” he smiled in that Oliver way, happy and sad all at once. 

Uncertainty has never been sustainable between the two of us, and not knowing where I stood with him was weighing heavy on me. I used to tell myself that in our real lives, outside of that tiny bedroom, we wouldn’t fit, we wouldn’t make sense. But as I looked at him, all I wanted to do was kiss him, rip his clothes off, climb inside of him. “Still long enough for you to pull on,” is what I settled on because I wanted to watch him react, feel him react, even if that meant watching his face twist in disgust. 

I watched my words visibly shiver down his spine, and he let his eyes fall closed for a second before his lips pulled into a smirk. “The mouth on you,” he chided. Something in the tension pulling between us told me he was about to reach out and touch me. And he did, just the brush of his thumb down the curve of my jaw, but his hand stayed there, thumb against my chin.

I pulled my lip between my teeth, overcome with nerves under his heavy gaze, and his scorching touch. His thumb stroked up across my lip, easing it free. “I think,” I started, surprised at how rough my voice sounded. He grinned, thrilled by it, and I brought my hand up to his waist, fingers curling into his shirt. “You should take me home before I get naked on this sidewalk.”

He laughed, eyes wide with surprise, and suddenly he was a little bit closer, fingers dragging through my hair. “Well, we can’t have that.”

o-o-o

Standing in his apartment felt so surreal, and I had this urge to walk straight into his bedroom and burrow into his blankets until I was as much a fixture in his apartment as the bed itself. As soon as we walked through the door his hand caught on my wrist, slipping down so our fingers could intertwine for a brief moment before he let go again. I looked up at him to see this molten look on his face. “I missed you,” he said softly, and then he took my face in his hands and he kissed me reverently as though no time had passed, deep and dirty like he had no intention of staying dressed. 

When we broke apart his pupils were blown, and he was grinning at me. “Can we talk first?” I asked, and I didn’t have to clarify what I thought would come after. 

“Yes, yeah, of course,” he said quickly. He let go of me and I looked around the room, at all of the things that belonged to him just as wholeheartedly as I did. “I’m so sorry, Elio. I can only imagine how angry you must be with me,” Oliver said softly.

“Angry about what?” Anger had never really been in the picture for me. Last winter, I was devastated, but it never once crossed my mind to feel anything but longing for him. I was grieving the loss of the most important person in my life, but I was also grieving because he was the person who made me feel most like myself. 

He looked up at me skeptically. “For leaving. For letting everything happen when I knew I was leaving. The engagement. The list goes on.”

I sighed. “In all the time since I met you, I have never once regretted you. Even when it hurt so much that I couldn’t see an end. For the rest of my life, that is the one thing that is not going to change.”

He let out a heavy breath. “I have never met anyone quite as astounding as you.”

I ignored the compliment, filing it away for later alongside all of the mumbles of affection and adoration from those nights in my room. “Do you regret it?” I asked, settling on his couch. 

“No. I don’t know what to think, but I can’t regret you because you taught me who I am that summer. I thought I knew who I was, but I was wrong because I’m nothing without you. I know that you think I moved on with my life when I came back to New York but that isn’t true.”

“So why are you sorry?”

“I just am.”

“When you left, you took me with you in all the ways that count. What matters to me now is if you’re going to touch me and kiss me, which I want you to do, you understand that I can’t let you take me with you again.”

“I know,” Oliver said softly. “For what it’s worth, I left myself behind on that platform in Bergamo with you.”

“I wish you had,” I admitted.

He smiled in that half-sad way again. “When I looked at you that morning, I didn’t think I would even board that train. I wish I hadn’t, but I had this concept of what I thought I was to you, what I thought you wanted, or you would want. I just wasn’t brave enough.”

“Come here,” I murmured. He sat down next to me and I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, pushing my face into his neck. “I just want you. Forget everything else.”

He sighed and hitched his hand up inside of my shirt, hauling me closer. “There is nothing I want more than you.”

I felt like I was bleeding love, hemorrhaging it, and every word I’d ever said to him, from the moment he stepped out of the car that first day, to now, and a million moments into the future, was all just an expression of it. I pitched up to kiss him again, climbing fully into his lap. He more than let me, both hands falling to my hips. It took all of two minutes for it to escalate, and my hands went straight to his zipper. “Slow down. I want to see you first,” he murmured, taking my face back into his hands to kiss me again. I tugged my shirt off, letting him kiss across my collar and up the column of my throat. He ended up underneath me, sprawled out shirtless on the couch, and that first moment that I looked down at him it hit me, everything that it took to get back here after last summer. 

Oliver’s hand curled possessively into the back of my hair while he kissed me, and I just couldn’t imagine anyone else making me feel this way. He was the singular person in the entire world that could make me this happy. And while that was beautiful and awe-inspiring and deeply emotional, it was also terrifying. The thought glowed hot in my chest and I started to feel like I couldn’t breathe. 

“Are you alright?” he made no move to resist me breaking the kiss, but he folded his hand around mine where it was pressed against his chest, his thumb running across my skin in gentle concern. 

I nodded, and he waited quietly, graduating to running his hand up and down my forearm. “Just overwhelmed,” I said finally, blushing under his gentle gaze.

He smiled, pulling my hand so he could press his lips to my palm, and then in a line down my wrist. “There’s no rush.” He shifted me slightly so he could sit back up again. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, lacing my fingers against the back of his neck.

“It’s not that. It’s just that you’re here, and I kind of never thought I’d get to have you like this again. I’m sorry, I’m probably freaking you out.”

“You’re not freaking me out,” he said firmly. “I think you’d have to try a lot harder than that.”

“Okay,” I said lamely, but my cheeks were still warm with embarrassment. 

“What else are you thinking?” he asked softly. 

“I just don’t want anything to change. I don’t want to lose you again.” My mouth twisted wryly as I spoke, my stomach tight with the confession. 

He sighed, kissing a line up my bicep and over my shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re the only one I want.” I let his reassurances melt down my spine, the stress shedding from my shoulders. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

“So why don’t we put getting naked on pause for a minute,” Oliver proposed, his hands running along my waist. 

“But don’t put your shirt back on,” I said quickly. 

“Oh, yeah?” he laughed. He sunk his teeth into the junction of my neck, squeezing at my hips. “Someone’s gained their confidence back,” he teased.

“Please?” I offered, raking my fingers through his hair as biting quickly shifted to sucking. 

He pulled off of my neck and kissed me softly again. “I’ll do anything for you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I grinned, and I didn’t mean for it to be sexy, but his reaction was very clear.

“Hungry?” he asked after a moment.

“I could be convinced.”

I made myself at home on his kitchen counter, already mourning the loss of his hands on my waist. He moved around the kitchen in a way that told me he spent more time in here than I would have guessed. “Do you like cooking?” I asked him because I just had to know. That was how every little thing felt around him, disastrously urgent.

“Sometimes,” he said, stuffing bread into the toaster. “I always wish I could throw things into a pot and magically have a delicious meal just based on intuition, you know?”

I grinned at this, the image bold in my mind. “A little idealistic.”

“Naïve, you mean,” he chuckled. “Just a fantasy. Sometimes cooking can be nostalgic, though.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. I badly wanted to kiss him again, so I abandoned my perch to corner him against the counter. He’d let me back him in, but he was the one to smooth his hands over my shoulders and press in to kiss me sweetly. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered, lips pressing softly to my forehead. 

I threw my arms around his neck and practically climbed him, overcome with the electricity of his words. “Me too.”

I sat back up on the counter while we ate, Oliver between my legs. We didn’t talk about it, but we both knew the second we were done eating we were gonna tear what remained of each other’s clothes off. He cleared our plates, and turned back to me, biting his lip. 

“Come here, sweetheart,” I said softly, reaching out for him. I had no idea where the pet name had come from, but it made him smile like I’d never seen before so it must have been the right thing to say. He let me pull him into my grasp and push my hands into his hair. 

“I want you more than anything,” he whispered, pressing his face into my neck. 

o-o-o

I looked over at Oliver lying next to me, his chest still flushed and heaving, and I felt so connected to him. Not just geographically, or literally because his hand was in my hair or because he’d been inside me moments earlier, but in all the ways that mattered. The feeling terrified me, and I climbed on top of him to try to ease the pressure building in my stomach. 

He let out a little surprised puff of air. “Oh, hi there,” he chuckled, wrapping his arms around my waist. “Everything ok, hon?”

I nodded and hid my face in his shoulder. “I love you,” I murmured, and I literally held my breath waiting for a response. 

“Oliver” he practically purred, kissing my ear because it was the only thing he could reach. 

“Elio,” I said back almost instinctively. 

“Look at me.” I folded my arms across his chest and rested my chin so I could look at him. “I’m gonna take that at face value and assume it’s not because you just got off,” he teased, fingers running through my hair again. “I love you, too.”

I kissed him because I felt like I would die if I didn’t. One of us rolled us over so he was on top of me again, and I honestly couldn’t say which one of us it was.

It was somehow even more desperate this time, louder, gigglier, and impossibly sweeter. I wanted to feel flayed open for him, nowhere to hide. Even afterward, as we were coming down, I wasn’t prepared for him to be even a centimeter farther away from me. When he went to move off of me, I held on tighter. “I don’t want to crush you,” he chuckled as I whined for him to stay. 

“Crush me,” I countered. He laughed and acquiesced.

We stayed like that for a long time until my desire to invade every corner of his apartment started to outweigh my need to feel his weight on top of me. “You can move now if you’ll let me go through all of your stuff,” I proposed. 

He grinned against my neck, letting out an acknowledging hum. “Be my guest. Not much to see.” He rolled off of me with a final kiss to my jaw. 

I disappeared into the living room and returned wearing his shirt. “Do you still have it?” he asked, sitting up. 

“Yeah, of course,” I didn’t need any context to know that he was referring to the shirt he’d given me when he left. 

“Wear it for me next time?” For some reason the request made me blush, and I found myself agreeing eagerly. 

I looked around his bedroom, taking in the obligatory, professorial piles of student papers and haphazardly stacked books he seemed to be reading all of endlessly and simultaneously. “What?” he laughed, following my gaze around the room a little self-consciously. There must have been something in my expression showing how it was both easy and incredibly difficult to stand in a room filled with him. 

“Just taking a look around,” I said coyly and opened his closet. I ran my hand over the line of dress shirts and ties, trying to picture him standing in front of a class full of students. Students my age, I realized. “Do you have a lot of work to do this weekend?” I asked, looking back at him. 

“Sure. Always do, I guess,” he answered easily. He hadn’t expected the question, but it felt so important to hear ordinary details so I could feel grounded in his actual life. I nodded, not saying anything. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah,” I smiled, although I felt tears pressing behind my eyes as if the question itself had conjured them. 

He got out of bed and he came over to crowd me against the doorframe of the closet. “Is it because you can’t wear every single one of my shirts at once?” he teased. 

I laughed, standing between his legs and pressing up to kiss him. “Yeah.”

We stood tangled together for a few more minutes before I continued my exploration, Oliver pulling on underwear and following me down the hall.

He found me in his office, watching as I sat down in his chair, throwing my feet up on the desk. This room felt the most like him, and I kind of never wanted to leave. He stood with his arms folded, figure framed in the doorway, light thrown from the hallway behind him. He was looking at me the exact same way I was looking at him, unabashed affection. “Every time I come in here, I’m just gonna think about you sitting there like that, and I’ll never get any work done,” he murmured.

“I think that might be the least of your distractions,” I smiled. 

I yawned, stretching dramatically. “I think you’re right,” he agreed softly, eyes twinkling amusedly. And then, “Come to bed, my love.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading. Let me know what you thought of this, and check out my other stuff if you're interested.


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